Growing Wild Garlic, Allspice And Slime Onions

2024 Author: Sebastian Paterson | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 13:47

Continuing the conversation about perennial onions, which, unfortunately, are still rarely found in summer cottages and personal plots, today we will talk about three types of onions - allspice, slime onions and wild garlic.

Sweet onion

Sweet onion

It is a perennial plant with narrow, dark green, flat, linear, with a strong waxy coating, succulent leaves with a delicate taste and garlic aroma.

The bulb is cylindrical, not pronounced, it seems to continue the false stem. Allium odorum L. branches until late autumn, each branch has 5-6 leaves. New branches give in a year a rigid flower arrow 20-60 cm high with white, large, star-shaped flowers. During flowering, the plant is decorative. This type of onion can only be grown on sufficiently moist or irrigated soil.

Lack of moisture leads to the fact that leaves immediately grow back tough and unpleasant to the taste. On sufficiently moistened soils, new, juicy, tender leaves will grow until late autumn. Acidic soils are also completely unsuitable for him, although he tolerates increased acidification better than onions and batun. High acidity of the soil affects plants in the same way as dryness: the leaves become rough and turn yellow quickly.

Gardener's guide

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Aromatic onion varieties - Aprior, Aromatic, Benefis, Vostochny, Dzhusay, Zvezdogot, Piquant. Local forms are also grown. When grown on ridges, plants are placed in four-row rows with a distance between them and between plants in a row of 20-25 cm. Sowing is usually carried out in spring or early summer. 1-1.5 g of seeds are consumed per 1 m². You can grow sweet onions by seedling method.

50-60-day-old seedlings are planted. Sometimes a new site is planted with bulbs from the old one. Scented onion care is common for all perennial onions. If leaves and arrows remain uncleared in autumn, they are removed first in spring. During the summer, do 1-2 cleanings, cutting off the leaves or separating part of the old bushes. The yield of sweet onion is 1-1.5 kg / m².

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Slime onion

A plant with flat, linear, light green, very succulent leaves 20-27 cm long. Its stem is an underdeveloped rhizome, on which bulbs sit in a circle 25-30 cm in diameter. The slug branches throughout the summer. Its arrow is hard, inedible. The inflorescence is a simple umbrella 3-4 cm in diameter with light lilac flowers that have a pink tint. The slime onion is very frost-hardy and winter-hardy, practically does not freeze out in the northernmost regions of the Non-Black Earth Region.

It is hygrophilous - with a lack of moisture, the leaves become coarse and acquire a sharp, unpleasant taste. In one place slime is grown for 6-7 years. Well-moistened, neutral, weed-free, well-fertilized areas are allocated under it. On acidic, poorly moisturized areas, slug forms hard leaves with an unpleasant taste.

Slime onion varieties - Green and Leader. Local forms are also grown.

Seeds are sown in spring or summer, no later than July 10. Slime can be planted with seedlings or propagated by dividing the bush. It is placed on ridges in 3-4 lines, with a distance between them of 20-25 cm. The seeding rate of seeds is 1.5-2 g / m2. Seedlings or parts of a bush are planted in a row after 20-25 cm. Caring for onions with a slime is usual: loosening, watering, weeding. It responds well to organic fertilizing (mullein 1:10 or bird droppings 1:20).

In this case, the plants reach marketable ripeness 5-7 days earlier, and the yield increase is about 10%. A month before stable frosts, they make a phosphorus-potassium dressing. In autumn, the leaves and remaining arrows are removed so that they do not interfere with the processing of plants in spring. Slime begins to grow early - in mid-April-early May. During the summer, make 2-5 cuts.

Slime onion grows well under film shelters. The leaves under the film reach harvest maturity 10-12 days earlier than in the open field. Greens can be driven out of old plants in winter in protected ground.

Ramson

From left to right: victory bows, bear bows and slime bows

There are several types of wild garlic (Allium victorialis L.): victory onion, Okhotsk onion and bear onion. Wrongly called wild garlic onions. Ramson forms 2-4 smooth, flat, like a lily of the valley leaves with longitudinal venation. The length of the leaf, the structure of the bulb and the inflorescence determine its botanical appearance. Victory onion has cylindrical-conical bulbs 1-1.5 cm thick, with light brown or grayish-brown shells, 2-3 leaves 3-6 (up to 10) cm wide, up to 17 cm long. The leaf blade gradually narrows and passes into the petiole, which is 2-4 times shorter than the plate.

Its flower arrow is up to 30-70 cm high and is 1/3 or half dressed with smooth, often violet-colored leaf sheaths. Umbel spherical, rarely hemispherical, many-flowered, rather dense, drooping before flowering. The flowers are stellate, whitish-green. Bulbs one by one (rarely several) are attached to the oblique rhizome. The Okhotsk onion is distinguished by a longer rhizome, darker and wider leaves, and often reddish flowers.

In bear onions, the bulbs are elongated, about 1 cm thick, with shells splitting into parallel fibers. The plant forms, as a rule, 2 leaves 9-12 cm long and 3-5 cm wide. The leaf blade is thicker and denser, gradually turning into a petiole equal to or twice as long. The arrow of this type of onion is 15-40 cm high, at the base it is dressed with vaginal leaves. Umbel tuft or hemispherical, relatively sparsely colored, dense. The flowers are stellate, white.

Mass budding begins in mid-late May. By this time, the leaves reach their maximum development. Yellowing of individual leaves has been observed since early June. They coarse and become unsuitable for food. By the time the seeds ripen (in July), the plants completely dry out. Secondary regrowth of greenery is not observed.

Seeds of wild garlic are almost spherical, covered with a very dense shell, quickly lose their germination. Dropped out of the seed pods in the fall into the ground, they germinate in the spring together, and those collected and lying until spring become practically non-similar. Perhaps they need natural stratification in natural conditions.

Ramson

Ramson is well adapted to the harsh climate. Under cultural conditions, it is highly frost-resistant: it does not freeze out in snowless, harsh winters. The awakening of growth buds in her begins during the period of snow melting, and the regrowth of leaves in the first half of April. In open areas that are not typical of its nature, the development cycle of wild garlic accelerates.

In Russia, only one variety of wild garlic has been zoned - Medvezhonok.

In culture conditions, shaded and humid places should be chosen for wild garlic. It's a good idea to place it next to fruit trees. She gets along well with sea buckthorn.

Dividing the bush is so far the only way to propagate wild garlic that can be successfully used. In early spring or in the second half of summer, some of the bulbs are separated from the bush and planted with a distance of 20-25 cm, both between lines and in a row. You can plant wild garlic according to the 50 × 20 cm scheme.

Care consists in weeding, loosening, dressing. The main activity for the care of wild garlic when grown in open areas is the creation of diffused light. For this landing, it is covered with light shields made of thin slats.

Read the next part. Green Onion Recipes →